Saturday, June 23, 2012

I have lots and lots of ideas, I rarely
write them down. This one has been gnawing on my brain for a
while...

I've been watching a lot of cooking shows lately. A
better thing to say is that they're on in the background quite frequently.
While 'watching' those, I get little ideas here and there. Today I made
Bacon Ice Cream, but that's a different story... The
final piece of the puzzle was fit in today for my idea. Guy Fieri did
a special DDD on Worth Our Weight, an apprentice program for people
who have faced major challenges in their lives. They do not pay for
tuition and come out of the program with culinary and restaurant
management training.

Then there's Chuck's Day Off, where
the chef prepares food for a wide variety of people who 'work' for
his restaurant. Be it staff, suppliers, or just friends. It's a cool
idea to bring people together for a meal who ordinarily would not eat
together.

And of course, Chopped with their secret
ingredients, and Iron Chef with the theme ingredient.

Now, in my mind, I've put them ALL
together. Everyone into the pool as they say...

My idea is NOT
a cooking show. In fact, it would be seen as a community service. The
idea: a soup kitchen for the homeless, staffed by the less fortunate.

What I would envision
is something like Worth Our Weight, taking in the underprivileged,
those who have had difficulties, and those who simply cannot afford a
proper culinary school; and giving them a place to learn and thrive.
These people would be supplemented with either volunteer grad
students OR chefs from around the city, kind of like a mentorship program That's where Chuck's Day Off
comes in, chefs who are not working would have the ability to come in
and 'teach', or simply cook meals in a different venue, while others gleaned info of what they were doing.

Chopped
and Iron Chef give me the idea of essentially NOT buying many
products. IE, ingredients are given to you, and you make do with what
you have. Obviously some things will need to be bought, but with the
number of grocery stores, the Food Terminal and various Farmers
Markets, more than enough food is ditched on a daily basis to make at
least one restaurant work.

I have two trains of thought on
this. One is simply for the homeless. The other is a little more
complex and has regular customers coming into the kitchen and paying
for their food, which then in turn subsidizes the feeding of the
homeless.

I'm not in any sort of position to make any of this happen, but if any of YOU are, feel free to take this idea and run with it!